Finding a cure for Alzheimer's

For the last 8 months or so, I've been part of a research lab on campus.  Our lab studies acetylcholine receptors, which are proteins in the body whose function has to do with both movement and cognition, among other things.  In our research, we study the effects of another protein, beta-amyloid, on the acetylcholine receptor.  Beta-amyloid is a protein whose misfolding causes much of the pathology and neurodegeneration seen in Alzheimer's disease.  When beta-amyloid folds the wrong way, it causes other beta-amyloid copies to fold improperly as well, amplifying the degenerative effect.  We hope to characterize beta-amyloid's effect on the acetylcholine receptor to better understand the pathology of Alzheimer's.

Of course, this is only a piece of the puzzle.  Alzheimer's is a problem that encompasses many molecular players in the brain, which is why so many scientists are working on it right now.  With the scope of the problem so wide, it's hard to feel like your work is making a difference.  In fact, it may not be; it's possible that the key to curing Alzheimer's is something my current lab isn't associated with right now.  Even when labs develop drugs or other therapies that look promising for the treatment of Alzheimer's or other neurodegenerative diseases, there's still the problem of getting them across the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which excludes many molecules from entering the brain (for a good reason, of course, but it makes drug research difficult).

A couple weeks ago, for my advanced neuroscience class, we read a couple journal articles about the difficulties in getting drugs across the BBB and several ways of getting around it.  Some of them seem to do more harm than good, but more recent techniques show promise.  One of these techniques involves introducing a pathological protein like beta-amyloid with an immunologic adjuvant (an adjuvant is something that stimulates an immune response).  The adjuvant both activates the immune system and disrupts the BBB so that beta-amyloid can get across.  But why do we want to put a disease-causing protein in the brain?  Well, while the BBB is disrupted, the immune system is making antibodies against beta-amyloid.  Normally, this wouldn't matter, because if the antibodies can't get into the brain where the problem is, nothing gets solved.  But because of the adjuvant, antibodies for beta-amyloid are introduced into the brain.  And, theoretically, if we could properly introduce these antibodies without overly raising levels of beta-amyloid, it would be like a vaccine for Alzheimer's.  A VACCINE.  FOR ALZHEIMER'S.

Yep.  You heard me right.

Before anyone comes up with conspiracy theories about why this promising technology isn't already being distributed to everybody, understand that there's more that has to be done before this kind of a thing is ready to be safely and effectively used in humans.  But if this is modified to the point that it reliably and repeatedly works, it would solve one of the most expensive and debilitating medical problems in this country.  Not only solve it, but prevent it.  I haven't read much more about it since then, but it's very possible that the blood-brain barrier will be a major research focus of mine for my scientific career.  Whatever I end up doing, I want my research to help alleviate suffering.  I may just be working on a small piece of the puzzle for the rest of my life, not contributing in any noticeable way to any major problems.  But if something I discover helps somebody else to discover something that changes the world, I'm okay with that.  Because I did my part.

Why I believe in God: Evolution vs. creation

I recently finished watching the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham regarding the logical soundness of the creation model vs. the evolution model.  It gave me an opportunity to think about how I really feel regarding science and religion (although I have done so many times in the past), and this time I felt that I could share a few ideas I have relating to the subject of the existence of a higher power.  I will first describe how I believe that the existence of a higher power is not only possible but plausible, and then I will discuss why I personally believe in a supreme being.

Why God is "allowed" to exist

Evolution vs. creation:  How did life and matter come into being?

I don't want to spend too much time discussing the Nye vs. Ham debate (if you're interested, here it is).  There were several subjects, however, that Ham had a difficult time reconciling with Nye's points, and Nye requested elaboration on several topics multiple times that Ham never provided.  I feel that a lot of Ham's difficulty in the discussion came from the fact that he posits a literal interpretation of the Genesis text.  Ham, and all of the creationist scientists he cites, believes that the events of the creation took place in six 24-hour periods and that the earth, as well as the universe, does not far exceed an age of 6,000 years.  Much of Nye's evidence was pretty glaring in its challenge to the credulity of Ham's claims.

Having been raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), I admit that a good portion of my thought process during the debate was what it would have been like for Ham if he had approached the issue from the perspective of Mormon theology.  I am not implying that a debate between Bill Nye and a Mormon would be devoid of intellectual inconsistency on the part of LDS theology, but several specifically LDS teachings regarding the creation are, in my opinion, more in agreement with scientific evidence than those of mainstream Christianity (at least as set forth by Ham).

I don't consider myself an expert on Mormon theology, and much of what I say may be merely my own interpretation of LDS doctrine.  Take it with a grain of salt.  But here are some ideas I find plausible (meaning I am not presenting them as fact), some only loosely based on LDS theology, that may explain some of the events behind the creation:

1. God has created "worlds without number" (Moses 1:33), and they were not necessarily all created at the same time; in fact, they probably were not.  Thousands of planets could have been created before our world ever even began.
2. The six periods of time during which God created the earth are symbolically given the appellation of "days", and do not refer to 24-hour periods of time.  Thus, the creation could theoretically have taken thousands, millions, or billions of years by our time standards.
3. Adam and Eve were the first two human beings to inhabit the planet, but they may not have been the only two human or human-like beings on the earth by the time the Fall occurred and they were cast from the garden.  We don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden, and I find it reasonable that if the garden was separated from the rest of the world in the spiritual sense, it could plausibly be sequestered in an evolutionary biological sense.  The process of evolution of various life forms could have happened exactly as modern science describes it, including the evolution of primates to humans or human-like beings, while Adam and Eve remained in the garden.  (If this is the case, I don't have an opinion about how long any pre-Adamic human races remained, or if they intermixed with Adam and Eve's posterity.  I haven't really been exposed to enough evidence to formulate an opinion about either of these ideas.)

I don't pretend that these ideas reconcile all the difficulties between the evolution model and the creation model.  For example, I don't know how to reconcile the Biblical or LDS teachings regarding Noah's flood with several pieces of evidence Bill Nye mentioned during the debate, though I do not feel that there is no explanation.  But what I've learned about the factual process of evolution has not disturbed my perception of how the creation could have happened.  As far as the Big Bang and the creation of the universe in general, I am not enough a student of physics or astronomy to know much of the theory behind this, but I do find it plausible that the Big Bang or something like it could have been wrought by a supreme creator as well.

Science

I knew it was only a matter of time before I posted something about science on here. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. Ever since I've been in college, I've had the privilege to taste from the table of the greatest scientists who ever lived. Carl Sagan, Luigi Galvani, Rene Descartes, Johann Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, Democritus, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Sean Carroll, Marie Curie, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, Vilayanur Ramachandran, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Oliver Sacks, Watson & Crick, Daniel Levitin, Ludwig Boltzmann, whoever came up with the brilliant idea of entropy, and (most importantly) God are only a few of the incredibly intelligent scientists that I've come to idolize. I've probably only said about 1% of them here, I could go on for days. Oh, yes, and I'm a geek. I'm going to say it right now because it's going to make the rest of this post so much easier to read. Anyway, the reason I am so fascinated with these people is that they were able to create completely new things. It takes such a remarkably diverse skill set to be able to create things that I can think of these people as no less than utter geniuses. So what does it take to be one of these geniuses?

Determination/Dedication
I would be no less than completely surprised if any one of the scientists I mentioned didn't have absolute passion for what they were doing. Every time I think of the structure of DNA or the wiring of the brain or the organization of the cosmos, I think, Whoever did this much work thinking this up must have had a reason for it. I can't comprehend the kind of passion it would take to stir a pot of radioactive radium for a full day without stopping, try 605 failed medications for curing syphilis before finding one that actually worked, try thousands of ways to light a coiled filament (yes, I know he stole from Tesla), or many of the other spectacular feats of perseverance that famous scientists have come to be known for. I could never do that. I got frustrated enough trying to get only the stupid heading to this paragraph to be bolded and the rest of it in normal type (oh yeah, I'm also terrible with technology). What these scientists must have realized in the course of their work was that they were truly connected to something greater, and trivialities such as fatigue, frustration, and failure should not, could not, and would not deter them. They were truly inspired. I don't believe that science disproves or ever has disproven the existence of God; in fact, I am firmly convinced of quite the contrary (a belief which I could and may possibly write a whole entire other post about). I think that God, being the creator of all worlds and all the glorious, beautiful science that governs them, truly wants us to understand just how He was able to do the things he did, or at least to the puny extent that we can in this life. He wants us to understand science, and I believe many of the people I have mentioned were either directly or indirectly inspired by Him to conduct and formulate the marvelous and wonderful experiments and ideas they did.

Unrivalled Cognitive Abilities
Yeah, I know that sounds weird. Let me explain. If you've ever heard about Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning (thanks to Matt Veibell and McKay Easton for letting me in on the wonders of this thing), you'll know that the top two tiers of the pyramid are evaluation and synthesis (it is currently contested as to which should be at the top; even I haven't really decided which is cognitively greater). Every great scientist who has ever lived has possessed one or (usually) both of these attributes to some great extent. Evaluation is the process of critically judging material that has been submitted in the past and making a claim as to its validity. It is what makes science self-correcting. Synthesis is the process of making entirely new ideas out of almost nothing. It is what advances science and allows us to have new ideas about the world. Of course, both of these processes can result in completely dumbfounded and bullheaded ideas, such as that of Venus being an offshoot of Jupiter and causing such cosmological anomalies as the prolonging of the days around Jesus' birth or the lengthening of the days in the Israelites' battle with the Amalekites (not sure if I got the tribe right on that one). Seriously, there was an actual theory about this. Watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series if you don't believe me. So science can create some stupid ideas from some pretty confused people. But the funny thing is, that's not the problem. As Carl Sagan says of this theory in his TV series, the problem isn't that this idea is completely stupid and wrong. The problem is that people rejected it at face value without any proof or evidence. The fascinating thing about science (one of them, anyway) is that ideas can be made that sound completely illogical and indefensible, and still be right. Scientists laughed and ridiculed at Galileo's proposal of a sun-centered solar system just as much as the Venus-child-of-Jupiter theory probably was (maybe even moreso). But Galileo was RIGHT! Everything he said sounded absolutely wrong in his time, but we know it today to be accurate and descriptive of how the solar system really works. Such are the possible results of the synthesis process. What evaluation brings to science is that it takes these ideas, compares them to the data that is present, and refines or rejects the theory with respect to its validity. Evaluation is what threw out the Venus idea and accepted the Galilean model for the solar system. One caveat to this point, though, is that it MUST be done with evidence. Evaluation without evidence is just what happens when people try to judge scientific theories without any justification. Evaluation without evidence is what Sagan said was wrong. It's a slow, tedious process, but we must learn to accept that judging theories relies crucially upon the interpretation of empirical evidence (although I believe this applies more to science than to more aesthetic matters like philosophy and religion). Evaluation and synthesis require the highest of minds to execute. Think of the ingenuity and inspiration it must take to create something out of nothing! How did Newton think of gravity? How did Boltzmann and others think of entropy? How did Einstein think of relativity? Essentially, they had the minds able to comprehend such complex processes, and the imaginations necessary to entertain such impressions.

Luck
Yep...not much I can say about this. (Insert cheesy smile and thumbs-up sign here.) Maybe if you carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain, you can break the curse that your no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather put on your family and finally develop the breakthrough recipe for Sploosh that you've been working on for years (and I truly hope somebody got that reference, or I just looked really stupid). I will say, though, that patience is an important part to having luck. Luck comes to everyone eventually, it just takes longer for some than it does for others. Patience is a principle that is pretty thoroughly tied to dedication and perseverance in that all of them require passion, so I'll leave it alone for now.

INSPIRATION
God gives valuable knowledge to more than just prophets. Although it could be considered that these scientists were a kind of prophet in themselves. As I said before, I believe science couldn't be more in agreement with religion. And I think that many of the scientists I've mentioned believe this way too. I think it's an unfair stereotype to write all physicists off as atheists just because they believe in the Big Bang, or to write all biologists off as agnostic just because they believe in evolution. I think that the Big Bang and evolution are both plausible and supportable ideas that accurately explain many things, and I still believe in God. Science is one of those things that's religiously neutral, just as a white paper viewed behind colored cellophane wrapping; it changes based on your perspective. An atheist could use science just as easily to support his negation of God's existence as I could to support my affirmation of God's existence. It neither proves nor disproves that there is truly a God. I believe that science is in accordance with religion because my whole life has been a background in religion, but if I had a different background I may believe otherwise (although I am thankful that I did not...and I think I could write another blog post about this too). Basically, I think that no one can ever completely destroy or affirm God in his mind at this stage of life. No one can ever fully embrace doubt, neither can they completely get rid of it in mortality. I like to think (and yes, I'm going out on a limb here) that most of the theories that scientists came up with were based on the belief that something made all this. Maybe not necessarily God, but something. And that something is what pushed them. That something is what kept them going through all the failures and accidents and explosions (although explosions are what would keep me going) to push on to victory.

The most enlightening TV Series ever made

I have recently finished watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" TV series on Youtube (here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=92A4742FE9A6AA8C). It's mainly about astronomy and the planets and such, but there's so much more. Sagan begins by outlining a history of astronomy and how the discipline came to be studied and expanded. Eventually the series comes to address our place in the cosmos and how the human race plays a role in everything around us. It is a masterful fusion of science and art blended into one profound experience. I urge you all to watch it as it is universally applicable (literally) and contains one of the most passionate and dedicated scientists ever to walk this earth. I love science, and I love how Carl Sagan is able to explain it in a way that is both understandable for laymen and contemplative for the elite. I truly believe he was inspired to have an insatiable curiosity for the cosmos and how the universe really worked, and had the dedication to follow after that passion until the day he died.